For me, I was for it. I thought it was an interesting title. Thus then and there I said that we’d need a song. The three of us would put our heads together and we’d make a song which people could use to decolonize a little moment of their daily individual lives [decolonize in the sense of erasing another trace of English from their lives by getting rid of the Happy Birthday song which stems from English].

I came back with “Gens du pays”, the first verse – the chorus. They said “That’s it, you have it!” That’s the first verse, yup – we’re talking about love, not about war. Everyone is included, as well as the youth.

He said to me “Me, I’m going to explain it all to the world. Let me do it.” And then Yvon explained it to us all, using Auntie Yvonne as a reference – “My Aunt Yvonne, it is your turn, to let yourself talk about love. Now everyone repeat it back to me!” And he made the crowd repeat it back!

And yes, the crowd repeated it. So you know, the song met its goal, to decolonize a little moment of daily life – that which was “Happy Birthday to You”, or in a bad translation “Happy Birthday Ma Do”.

There is something very generous in the formula of the song : “to let yourself… It is your turn to let yourself talk about love.”. That’s very meaningful. I believe you were speaking about living with one another. That’s what I also heard. So perhaps it’s a bit loopy with whims of a rite, almost like a prayer.

It’s not far from being a prayer. And the stream of the present comes to a halt and forms a pond, where every person may see their love reflected, like in a mirror. We always come back to that. This is my wish for everyone’s hearts. And here, there are young people listening to us who perhaps will view it as such also.

Oh yes. It was surely more clear. We were in 1975, and everyone for sure thought that it was going to happen. As Gaston Miron said, “So long as it has not been accomplished, independence is yet to come.”

Well, it makes me smile. It makes me think that I was right. And for my part, whenever I wished Yvon or Louise or Claude Fleuri a happy birthday, I would phone them and sing “Happy Birthday to you… “, which would make everyone laugh.